Quebec museum honours racing legend Gilles Villeneuve

DAVID JOHNSTON, The Montreal Gazette06.23.2011

More than 250,000 people from 30 countries have visited the Musée Gilles- Villeneuve in Berthierville since it opened in 1988. Gilles Villeneuve was a daring Formula 1 driver who was killed in an F1 race accident in Belgium in 1982. As a driver for Ferarri, he won the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix race on Ile Notre Dame, where the track was renamed in his honour months after his death Gilles son, Jacques, was the 1997 F1 Grand Prix champion. Photos courtesy of Musée Gilles- Villeneuve.Handout photo
/ Musée Gilles- Villeneuve

More than 250,000 people from 30 countries have visited the Musée Gilles- Villeneuve in Berthierville since it opened in 1988. Gilles Villeneuve was a daring Formula 1 driver who was killed in an F1 race accident in Belgium in 1982. As a driver for Ferarri, he won the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix race on Ile Notre Dame, where the track was renamed in his honour months after his death Gilles son, Jacques, was the 1997 F1 Grand Prix champion. Photos courtesy of Musée Gilles- Villeneuve.Handout photo
/ Musée Gilles- Villeneuve

For many people unfamiliar with Formula One racing, Gilles Villeneuve is simply the name of a race track on Montreal's Île Notre Dame where the Canadian Grand Prix race is held every year.

"Just like Jacques Cartier is the name of a bridge in Montreal," says Alain Bellehumeur, executive director of the Musée Gilles-Villeneuve, with a chuckle.

F1 fans know better.

Younger fans know Gilles by reputation, and more derivatively as the father of Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 world champion. But older F1 enthusiasts, including Bellehumeur, have not forgotten Gilles's sudden rise in the 1970s from world snowmobiling champion to an F1 drivers's spot with the fabled Ferrari team. Gilles's very first F1 victory, coming as it did right here in Montreal in the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix, on the track now named for him, was a great moment in Canadian motor sports.

More than 250,000 people from 30 countries have visited Musée Gilles-Villeneuve since it opened in 1988 in Berthierville, the town 70 kilometres downstream from Montreal where Gilles grew up.

It has now been 29 years since Villeneuve père, known for his daring driving style, was killed in an accident during a qualifying run at the Belgium Grand Prix on May 8, 1982. He was only 32 at the time. After his first race victory in Montreal in 1978, he went on to win five more F1 races before his death, after which the track on Île Notre Dame was renamed in his honour.

Bellehumeur was a young sportswriter for a local community newspaper when Gilles Villeneuve moved from racing snowmobiles to racing cars in the Formula Atlantic series. He was so good that in 1976 James Hunt, a driver from the F1 McLaren team, who went on to become F1 world champion that year, took time off to travel to Trois Rivières to see Villeneuve race. He liked what he saw and the following year, 1977, Villeneuve made his F1 debut with the McLaren team.

Later that year, Ferrari of Italy signed him. For a Quebecer to join Ferrari in the late 1970s was sort of like an African coming to play for the Montreal Canadiens, says Bellehumeur today. Family patriarch Enzo Ferrari took an immediate personal liking to Villeneuve, comparing him at first sight to Tazio Nuvolari, a great F1 driver from the pre-Second World War years.

In fact, the first exhibit inside Musée Gilles-Villeneuve shows Enzo and Gilles sharing a laugh, with a caption quoting Enzo's memorable observation, which reads in part: "and when they presented me to this tiny Canadian, this minuscule bundle of nerves, I instantly recognized in him the physique of the great Nuvolari, and I said to myself, 'Let's give him a try.' "

F1 drivers are generally quite short and slim. At 5-foot-6, Gilles was wiry and energetic. Snowmobile racing helped shaped Villeneuve's driving style as an F1 driver. As a snowmobile driver, he got used to driving in poor visibility because of the clouds of snow blown up by the traffic in front of him. That was one reason why, he later said, he was never afraid of driving an F1 car driving in heavy rain. Similarly, driving on ice helped him cope with fishtailing at high speed on a wet turn on an F1 track.

When you think about it, it was really Gilles's masterful driving of a winter recreational vehicle invented by Quebec's Bombardier family that saw him end up in the Ferrari family fold in Italy.

When Hunt went to see Villeneuve race in Trois Rivières, Villeneuve drove a white race car bearing a Direct Film sponsor logo, in recognition of the long-gone Quebec photo-processing chain. The car is one of several race cars on display at the museum, which features cars and personal memorabilia of other Quebec drivers, too, including 1997 F1 world champion son Jacques, and Alex Tagliani and Patrick Carpentier. Tagliani is from Lachenaie, a town just west of Berthierville, while Carpentier is from Joliette, which is just north of Berthierville. Why this small area has produced the core group of Quebec race car professionals over the past generation is something of a mystery.

Next weekend, Musée Gilles-Villeneuve will be setting up a fundraising tent beside Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. In return for a donation, visitors will be able to get a photograph of themselves holding the trophy that Gilles Villeneuve received for his 1978 Canadian Grand Prix win in Montreal. Nobody who remembers all those Fleur-de-lisé flags waving on Île Notre Dame on the afternoon of Oct. 8, 1978, will ever forget what Gilles Villeneuve meant to Quebec.

The Musée Gilles-Villeneuve is situated one kilometre south of Exit 144 on Highway 40 in Berthierville. The town is halfway between Montreal and Trois Rivières. To get there, take Highway 40 (Metropolitan Expressway) east out of Montreal and continue to Exit 144. Follow the blue tourism sign for Musée Gilles-Villeneuve.

There are many restaurants around the highway exit. A sentimental favourite is the local Mike's franchise, which is owned by Guy Lafleur.

The hockey legend is often there.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.